1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data acquisition and logging systems associated with exploration and production of subsurface resources, for example, oil, gas or water, and more particularly relates to preparing a logging report with a configurable format.
2. Related Art
The exploration for subsurface minerals typically requires various techniques for determining the characteristics of geological formations. Many characteristics, such as the hydrocarbon volume, resistivity, porosity, lithology, and permeability of a formation, may be deduced from certain measurable quantities associated with the geological formations. Drilling of a well to determine the characteristics of the geological formations is a well known technique. A data acquisition and logging xe2x80x98toolxe2x80x99 or xe2x80x98systemxe2x80x99 is typically used to acquire information describing the well characteristics. The well may be, for example, and oil well, but can also be a well for exploration for other subsurface resources, such as gas and water.
Data Acquisition and logging systems generally include xe2x80x9cWirelinexe2x80x9d logging systems, and xe2x80x9cMeasurements While Drillingxe2x80x9d (MWD) systems. MWD systems can also include xe2x80x9cLogging While Drillingxe2x80x9d (LWD) systems.
Wireline logging is typically the process by which oil or gas wells are surveyed to determine their geological, petrophysical or geophysical properties using electronic measuring instruments conveyed into the wellbore by means of an armored steel cable, known as a wireline cable. The data acquired by downhole instruments that are secured to the wireline cable are transmitted back to a back-end portion of the data acquisition and logging system located at the surface through electrical conductors in the wireline cable. Conventional wireline technology is well known in the oil and gas industry.
Measurement While Drilling typically take the same measurements as Wireline logging, but while the well is actually being drilled. Sensors are located within the actual drillstring. The measurement results can be transmitted to the surface via mud-pulse telemetry (or similar techniques), or stored in downhole memory, or both
The information acquired by the logging system may then be used to prepare a customized oil well report for each customer. The customized report, also referred to as a logging report or a logging output, is useful by a variety of customers for making business decisions. For example, an oil company may use the report to make decisions regarding the commercial feasibility or attractiveness of the oil well. A government or a regulatory agency may review the logging report to grant drilling permits.
Present data acquisition and logging systems typically require time consuming manual operations to customize logging reports for each customer. A format and a source data file for each customized report are identified. For example, all measurements taken while logging may be recorded in a well known DLIS format that conforms to API RP 66xe2x80x94xe2x80x98Recommended Digital Log Interchange Standard (xe2x80x9cDLISxe2x80x9d), V-1.00xe2x80x99. A report program or a script is typically executed to output the customized report.
What-if scenarios during the data acquisition operation often require changes to the customized report. A quick response to the changes, preferably incorporated before removing the logging tool from the oil well, is often desired. If a customer requires on-the-fly changes to the customized report, then the process of incorporating the changes often results in changing the template and reflowing the whole data set, line by line. Performing this change while data acquisition of the data set of interest is on-going is not possible because the template is still being used for that data acquisition (and is locked), and the data is represented in sequential files that have to be read from the beginning. Thus, many changes have to be remembered and performed when data acquisition is completexe2x80x94delaying the creation of the products, which in turn delays their delivery to the customer, which can delay his decisions. Thus, flexibility to make changes is limited. Valuable time is often lost, and business decisions may be delayed by hours or days.
From the above it should be appreciated that there is a need to provide increased flexibility to prepare customized well reports from the exploration of petroleum and other sub surface resources, preferably completed before the tool is out of the hole. It would be desirable to have a flexible, report generation system that facilitates preparing customized reports more quickly and easily.
The foregoing need is addressed by the present invention. According to one form of the invention, a method for a well logging data presentation includes identifying data sets from well logging data. Each data set is assigned a unique identifier. A presentation template, which defines a presentation for the well logging data, is configured. The presentation for the logging data may be in the form of a display and/or a hard copy. The presentation template includes definitions of a number of component presentations. Each component presentation includes a corresponding component template. Each component template includes a pointer pointing to a source for one of the data sets and defines a structure for the component""s presentation. A graphical presentation program generates the presentation, responsive to reading the presentation template, component templates and data sets. The presentation can be viewed and changed while data is still being acquired.
According to another aspect of the invention, the well logging data presentation is reconfigured by modifying one of the presentation""s component templates. The modifying includes changing the pointer of the component template to point to a different data set. The well logging data presentation is re-generated automatically in response to the modified component template and the different data set.